A little pruning

I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me

That does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears

Fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.

John 15:1, 2 NASB

I was in my flower garden recently deadheading my roses. They were beautiful this year, the three bushes almost solid with clusters of red blooms. Little by little the flowers began to fade, the petals dropped, and all that was left were the unsightly remains. I know before long the shrubs will once again be covered with bright red roses, but first I had to get rid of all the spent ones. With pruning shears in hand I tackled the job. It wasn’t easy, and my back soon began to ache as I leaned over and clipped off all the dead blossoms.

   It reminded me of the verses in the fifteenth chapter of John. Our Heavenly Father has to prune our lives to get rid of the sin that wants to creep in. It isn’t a onetime thing, it is a continual process. Just like I will have to go out to my flower garden more than once this summer and deadhead the bushes, our Father has to come back again and again and cut out the sin that tries to invade our life.
   If I didn’t prune the roses they wouldn’t bloom as profuse as they will now that I have cut away the old ones. Oh, they would still produce flowers, but not as many as it will now that the spent ones are gone. In the same way God has to remove the things in my life that hinder fruit-bearing. Those things that need to be deadheaded will be different for each person. It could be a hobby, books, TV, Facebook, or computer games that take up the time we should spend with Him. Whatever it is needs to be cut away if we are going to be productive for Him.
   Do we enjoy this pruning from God? No, but it is necessary. In the twelfth chapter of Hebrews Paul tells us in verses five and six, “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the LORD, nor faint when you are reproved by Him; for those whom the LORD loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives.”
   Pruning of the believer is never easy. It is painful. It hurts when something I have held onto for so long is cut away, but God does it because He loves me. Further down in the same chapter, in verse eleven, Paul says “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.”
   I pray we all will be open to a little pruning on those things in our lives that keep us from becoming the fruit producing children our heavenly Father want us to be.
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Delaine Swardstrom is a registered nurse who spent most of her career working as a nurse in the correctional system. She and her husband, Jack, spent the first two years of their retirement in Germany as missionaries serving at Black Forest Academy, a school for missionary children. Her first novel, The Photograph was published in 2009, and her second, Shattered Dreams is in production. Delaine resides in Rapid City, South Dakota with her husband, Jack. They have been married fifty years and have two grown children, five grandchildren, and one great-granddaughter. You can follow her on her blog, www.booksbydelaine.com or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/BooksByDelaine.